Becci

I lived in Cozumel for a couple weeks January 2017 for a training course and while I was there I heard rumors about turmoil between the newest ferry company, who had set up service directly from the cruise ships to the shopping area, and the cab drivers who were being undercut by this new service and losing out on business they would have had prior.

Again, just rumors but it may have been some sabotage and not necessarily terrorism. Apparently the explosion happened while the ferry was without passengers so perhaps the intent was not specifically to hurt people.

This kind of thing happens everywhere though, including many times right in our own hometowns so you can be scared of everywhere all the time. Just be aware of your surroundings. That’s really all you can do.

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Weeeee Jimmy, George (Jorge after 5), and Dr E.

And though not a cruise director I really like Mr V the Maitre D.

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I [emoji171] NOLA and I spend as much time there as I can get away with. I’d like to recommend Ernie’s Tours for the BEST cemetery tour in the city! Ernie is local, he does not work for the big companies that have flooded the tour market with outsiders reading from a script. He is easy to find online just google Ernie’s tours New Orleans and his page will pop right up. You will not be disappointed I promise!

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Definitely monitoring this thread. Fingers crossed for you guys. We are supposed to sail Triumph next Saturday.

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Oh poor Floridians with 5 ports close by and only "small" ships. No sympathy here in Indiana for you. I frequently pay more for flights than I do for the cruise fare, no matter how small the ship is. [emoji22]

Seriously though, it could be that a lot of the smaller ships are used for shorter 3-4 days cruises of which Florida has many.

Better book it soo if you can still find anything. There are several festivals including the VooDoo Music festival, 3 different Vampire Balls and a whole host of other Halloween events in the city that weekend. Halloween is the second busiest time in New Orleans after Mardi Gras.

I like the La Quinta on Camp but I bet it's already booked out. Good luck!

I booked for myself plus two to be announced. Added the other two in online. You may have to call to do this.

My picture didn't come out really clear but I wanted to show you that they still have fancy drinks on Lido too. HOT drinks! Lol

I don't remember the Legend having a Red Frog Pub when we went this past summer but it does have all the other things you mentioned. I was worried about the same thing and though the Lido deck lost some of its appeal because of the cold it was still a fun cruise. We went to the shows and the comedy club after dinner. We danced in the club and the atrium. We stood on lido during the Tracy Arm day (bundled up with our noses running from cold) and watched the amazing scenery go by.

I did miss the whole tropical atmosphere but it was still great. They did have a drink mixing contest and the suess at sea parade too.

I'm glad we went and I think you will be too.

Price is certainly a factor when I book a trip but I do truly love Carnivals ships, entertainment and service.

I've tried other lines due to itinerary because Carnival did not offer that location/schedule but had there been an option for the same trip with Carnival I wouldn't have gone with anyone else.

I would FAR prefer 2 or more cheaper cruises per year than one more expensive one. Any vacation no matter the price is a good vacation. I don't have to be fancy to have a good time. For me it's more about the sun and the warm ocean and the time spent with friends than the style of cabin, nature of food, etc.

Me too! 280 days til Carnival Magic!🛳

I grew up poor and every house I've ever lived in except the current one has had mold So I don't understand everyone's fascination with it.

I also went on the Legend this past summer to Alaska and saw no mold. It was cold, we dressed accordingly. We stood outside in the cold rain for hours with our noses running. We also did NOT get sick.

If you got sick on Legend it was more likely you failed to wash your hands often enough and got some germs than that the ship made you sick from mold.

I do hope you had a good cruise regardless though!

"Just wait until slow Sally or sloth Steve make their way through and use the gap to your advantage. The people that move through the line like Sally and Steve are quite ubiquitous. It helps everyone as you're one less person clogging the line behind Sally and Steve."

I gotta agree with this one. If you don't want people to cut the line don't take up more time than necessary. It's people like Sally and Steve that make the lines long to begin with. I'm sure someone will take offense to this but there's two sides to everything.

We did use the hot tub in the spa. It is open to anyone without the need to buy anything. Also, don't forget the sauna for the really cold days to warm up!

We tried NCL in Hawaii a couple years ago and were so disappointed. We missed carnival the whole time.

The pros for us were: the itinerary, the local dance troupe they brought in for a show one night, the Hawaii expert lady on the PA system.

The cons were: the quality of the food/ anytime dining where there was always a wait, the crew were terrible (they were unfriendly, seemed to not want to do their job), the ship was DIRTY, it was very expensive, not a lot of fun stuff to do on the ship.

We also tried MSC in Europe however and it was fantastic! I honestly can't think of a single thing about it that I didn't love.

My friend and I did this excursion last January. Though I can't remember the cost I do know that it was amazing. The same company listed above took us out and they were great. The boat engine cut out while they had some girls in the air but they followed the safety procedure and though the girls got wet they came up laughing and said it was the best birthday fun they had ever had! We did have to wait an hour for a new boat to be brought over but for the trouble they let us stay up twice as long. Definitely recommend it!

Tallyho8- my friend and I were in San Juan last year for a cruise during the SanSe festival. We were very excited as I had read that the festival is "the Mardi Gras of the Caribbean". Apparently whoever said that has never been to Mardi Gras because it was not so much a festival as just a few musical acts set up around OSJ and a ton of people. I don't know if it is a tradition or what but all the people who seemed to be local had whistles that they blew continually, so much so that you could not hear the music acts that were going on.

I'm not trying to be a party pooper but even the smallest of county fairs is better. Aside from booze, there were no vendors. No local food, no local crafts, no attractions other than the couple stages set up for music. Just a lot of people and a lot of noise. Don't get too excited!

I spoke with a local at our hotel that said the mayor raised the license fees for vendors so high a few years ago that she ran them all out of town.

As far as the traffic goes- it was very bad Saturday night but Sunday morning we had no trouble whatsoever getting to port.

https://goo.gl/photos/7dQ1QLUCRKhjxDu58

I hope this works. It's a link to all our pics. There are a lot more of the ship and the fjord. And of course some of us being silly too. You will have to overlook those. [emoji5]️

I didn't get many pics of the funtimes. I should have I just spaced it. Sorry! Don't worry though, there is plenty to do.

The last day was a full day at sea with a couple of night time hours in Victoria. We were so drained that we didn't really go into Victoria other than to take a few pics of our ship all lit up at night from the pier.

Some things about the cruise I really enjoyed was the relaxed atmosphere and the friendliness of the crew. Legend is a smaller ship and the crew seems more personal. Our waiter Edsel in the dining room was the best. He knew our names and made sure we had everything we wanted. He even brought extra stuff to the table for us to try. There was a waiter named Himmler who invited us to the comedy at night. He told us which ones were funniest and which ones he enjoyed the most. The housekeeping boss stopped by our room to see if we needed anything. He said he liked to talk to the platinum guests and get their opinions.

The comedies were better than the main shows with the dancers in my opinion. Not that they didn't do a great job just not anything special.

The crowd was much different than you would find on a Caribbean cruise. It seemed like the majority of guests were either much older or families with small kids. I assume that is the reason there was not a lot of music on the lido like we are used to. It was a very quiet and not very crowded cruise for sure.

Club O2 must have been fabulous. I can only assume since we only seen my 15 year old cousin during excursions and dinner. He was seriously MIA the whole time we were on the ship. We would see him in a group of teens walking around occasionally. He would pretend not to see us. LOL

It was chilly most days but the pools and stuff were open. Don't bother to try getting in the hot tubs they were packed with kids and closed often due to bathroom accidents. There is a hidden pool in the spa that is a nice to find on a sea day.

Overall Alaska was beautiful. Of course so is the Caribbean. I'm not into being cold so I don't know that I would do it again but I'm so glad to have gone!

Ketchican is the shortest port day. It's a cool little town and keep in mind that if you do an excursion you will miss seeing the town. We did the Saxman Village/ Lumberjack Show combo tour. The village had some really cool totem poles with very interesting stories behind them. The local tribe did a presentation with singing and dancing in tribal regalia. It was interesting to learn that theirs is a matriarchal society. Everything is passed down according to the female descendants.

The lumberjack show was pretty cool. The guys are obviously actors who are also good at chopping wood. The crowd cheered and axes flew. It was a good way to spend the afternoon.

Juneau we did the Gold Mine tour with Carnival. We went into a mine and the guide demonstrated how they use the equipment, gave us some history and told us stories about the mine. After the mine part of the tour we went panning for gold. It was fun! We each found a few little flakes and some garnets too. Juneau had plenty of shopping as well so when we got back to town we did all of our souvenir shopping before heading back to the ship.

Skagway was the longest port day. We had reservations to go fishing with Fat Salmon Charters. Capt Joe met us at the boat, we got our licenses filled in and we were off. We fished mostly in the inlet by the two cruise ships that were in port that day. Again the weather was not great but we were optimistic. My 15 year old cousin had two salmon get off. And third one we thought for sure he would land but all of a sudden it was gone. Behind the boat up pops a harbor seal totally eating his fish! Dirty little thief! So of the 4 people fishing we only got two king salmon but it was fun none the less.

Now on our fishing boat was a local tour guide who was friends with our boat capt. The mans name is Dyea Dave and he is the nicest person I've ever met. He was disappointed that our kid didn't catch a king so he offered to take us to a local pond after the charter was done. We went and the kid caught so many pink salmon his arm was sore!! Dave is truly an amazing man and very proud of his home. He wanted us to see the area so he took us up to the Dyea Flats to see the salmon spawning after we fished. We had the most wonderful day ever!

I see that my pics may be blurry! Sorry. I'll include a link at the end to my google pics page.

So the third day was Tracy Arm Fjord. The weather was terrible. It was COLD! It rained and the wind was sharp! However, the views were breathtaking. I did the sail by of Naapali Coast a few years ago and I think Tracy Arm was better.

The naturalist did an amazing job pointing out everything she saw from the bridge. She showed us bald eagles and ice burgs, waterfalls and finally at the end of the route we came to the Glacier. Wow! We normally cruise to tropical places and got a kick out of the Hot drinks the bar was serving.

There was a small boat tour that we could take to get up close to the glacier but we decided to save our money.

The sauna is a nice place to warm up when your fingers get too frozen!

We just got back from Alaska and I wanted to write a bit about my trip. Hope someone either enjoys or finds helpful my review!

We flew into Seattle late Monday night and went directly to the Warwick Seattle Hotel downtown. It was pretty expensive but I wanted to wake up in downtown so we could walk around prior to setting sail Tuesday. So Tuesday morning we got up and walked a few blocks to the Pikes Place Market. The vendors were still setting up and it was a very lovely place. We were lucky enough to see the fish throwing!

Then we walked over towards the waterfront to see the first foggy glimpse of our ship. From there we walked to the Space Needle and the took a round about way back to the hotel. In all we probably walked 5 miles or so but it was a lovely day and we enjoyed the excercise.

The previous night we had used East Side for Hire to take us to the hotel. So when we were ready to go to the ship I used their app on my phone to order a car. Unfortunately when the driver got there he refused to take us because he said we had too much luggage. The same amount mind you that we had not 12 hours before. So I called the company and they were not interested in sending another car so we took a cab and paid a bit more but we were on the way so we were happy.

At the terminal we walked toward the building and there was a man having everyone with luggage line up into this huge line. Along comes a porter with a cart so we have him our luggage and a couple bucks to skip the line. Inside the terminal we proceed to the Platinum line. There is no separate room or anything like that for Platinum, just a different line. Within a few minutes we were walking up the ramp to the ship.

We had a drink and relaxed most of the rest of that day. It was wonderful to just kick back and be on the boat.

The second day we were at sea. The weather was a bit cooler but the middle of the ship had a glass cover over the lido pool so there was plenty of activity going on. The buffets were open kids were swimming. They had the hairy chest competition. The views were amazing! The naturalist Michelle I think her name was did a talk about what to see and had some great info about the area and the animals. It was also elegant night so we got dressed up and took pics before dinner.